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Franak Association Accuses Government and HDZ of Favoring Banks

– The ruling party as well as the opposition HDZ have openly protected the interests of banks at the expense of citizens, the economy, and the market – is the reaction of the Franak Association to the parliamentary debate held on Tuesday, during which the Government and the Legislative Committee expressed negative opinions on the proposal to abolish the currency clause.

The Association believes that the Government and the Legislative Committee, although confirming their commitment to market deregulation in a way that favors the interests of the banking sector, will sooner or later have to request the Croatian National Bank (HNB) to implement measures to remedy the already incurred damage for users of loans with a currency clause in Swiss francs. 

– These loan users were not given the opportunity to receive transparent offers from commercial banks before contracting loan products and have been deprived of an equal relationship between the contracting parties. The reminder from the former Minister of Finance about warnings that came from the Ministry and from the former governor of the HNB regarding the potential dangers of credit placements in CHF is alarming, as it implies that they were aware of the toxicity of these loan products, yet did not prohibit them - states the Franak Association.

They also claim that the SDP today, from the parliamentary benches, shifts the responsibility for the shortcomings of the regulators and the then HDZ Government exclusively onto the shoulders of the citizens, and those same citizens gave them their trust in the last elections, as they spoke during the election campaign about recalculating loans with a currency clause in CHF at the exchange rate on the day the loan was released for repayment (which represents a kind of abolition of the currency clause), while similar proposals from colleagues in the opposition are today labeled as populist and dangerous.

- Considering the previous experiences with the application of the currency clause, we can rightly ask what can debtors with loans with a currency clause in euros expect in the future? – the Franak Association wonders.